As we return to the instruction of our Heidelberg Catechism this morning, we read from two passages. The first, Genesis 1. And then we will look at Romans 3. And in Genesis 1, we begin at verse 26. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them. And God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth. And every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. The evening and the morning were the sixth day Now we turn to Romans chapter 3 Reading verses 10 through 18 of Romans 3 As It is written there is none righteous No, not one There is none that understandeth There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes. So far we read from God's inspired word. We consider this morning the truth set forth in Lord's Day Three of our Heidelberg Catechism, and I believe it's been a few weeks since you've heard Preaching from the catechism Lord's Day to begins the catechism's brief treatment of the misery of man and Lord's Day to is where we find the summary of the law the calling each of us has to love God with our whole being and The question then was asked Canst thou keep all these things perfectly? Because that's the requirement. And the answer is, in no wise. For I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbor. So we come to the instruction now of Lord's Day Three. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse? By no means. But God created man good and after his own image in true righteousness and holiness that he might rightly know his creator, God his creator, heartily love him and live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. Hence, our nature is become so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin. Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good and inclined to all wickedness? Indeed, we are, except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God. Loved in the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord's Day 3 is the middle of only three Lord's Days in our Heidelberg Catechism that constitute the first part of what the catechism has spelled out as the three things necessary for us to know in order that we might live in life and death in body and soul, in the only comfort of belonging to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. That comfort is exactly that. It's in Christ alone. And those three things necessary for us to know are first, how great my sins and miseries are, Second how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries namely by the wonder of God's grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone who shed his blood on the cross and arose again for the salvation of all those given him by the father The fact that the Catechism spends only three Lord's Days on that first thing necessary for us to know, while dividing that knowledge of deliverance and thankfulness, dividing that among the other 49 Lord's Days of the Catechism, does not indicate a lesser importance to the knowledge of our sins and misery. Without the personal knowledge of our sin and sinfulness, the greatness of our misery, there is seen no need for Christ, no need for a savior. Witness the Pharisees in Jesus' day. Theologically astute, more knowledgeable than most, but having no knowledge of their need for a savior. Their view of sin was such that they saw sin only in others. And Jesus had to say there was no salvation for them. They that are whole need not the physician. but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, Mark 2 verse 17. But that knowledge of our sin and misery set forth immediately in the Heidelberg Catechism is not intended to leave us in the depths of despair but immediately to direct our sight to the only Savior and our deliverance from so great a misery. And for that reason, the catechism, really in harmony with what we find in Scripture, gives careful treatment to what we have come to know as the doctrine of total depravity, but doesn't dwell on that subject at length. It would have us focus our attention upon that subject and upon ourselves no more than is necessary, but would call us to look upon Jesus and the wonder work of God's gracious salvation to the glory of his own name and grace. So this Lord's Day and next, we continue and conclude our consideration of the misery of man, noticing today the devastating effects of the fall. And as we consider this theme, we take in order the instruction of the catechism, taking each of our three points from the three questions and answers, so we consider this theme, the devastating effects of the fall, under the three points of created by God in his image, devastated by the fall into sin, and totally depraved except we are regenerated. When we consider the stark and troubling reality of the devastating effects of the fall, we have to begin with the understanding that God is not to be blamed for the misery of the human race. The attack upon Christianity that has become prevalent in our culture and in our own community is often tied to the bad things that happen. How often haven't you heard from those who have a contempt for the Bible, and therefore toward biblical Christianity, various attempts to associate God with evil in the attempt to cast off the innate knowledge of God, that God is and that he is to be glorified as God alone who rules over all, And so you might hear, for example, someone say something like this. You Christians and your God are to blame for these terrible evils, whatever evils they might be. After a mass tragedy in which many die and Christians express themselves by Praying for the victims and their families you might hear the response a lot of good your prayers do Where was your God to prevent this from happening? The blame is God's Apart from the biblical truth of God's sovereign government over all events and even over the evil actions of men and of angels of devils and there is an attempt to blame God either by associating the evil actions of men directly to him or by blaming God for not preventing such wickedness. Or you might have a grieving parent as one who I spoke with recently who conveyed to me about a wayward son having given himself over to a homosexual lifestyle and denouncing God and the Christian faith of his upbringing. He told his parent, you can't tell me I sin because God made me this way. God is to blame for a lifestyle contrary to his word and will, a lifestyle that brings pain and misery, and for one brought up under the teachings of the scriptures, a guilt-ridden conscience for doing something that's even contrary to nature. So it's important for us to face the question that our catechism would have us face As we take into account these various challenges to the teachings of the Word of God. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse? By no means. But God created man good and after his own image. in true righteousness and holiness that he might rightly know God his creator, heartily love him, and live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. Yes, God created man. Male and female, he created with the unchangeable distinctions between the two. He created them with genetics that marked them as unchangeably as male and female. Moreover, he created man good. after he had created male and female, placing Adam and Eve in that institution of holy marriage as God had ordained for male and female, after he had blessed them and given them the calling to be fruitful and multiply and had established their relationship to the creation, giving them dominion over the creation, as we read in Genesis 1 verse 31, and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Mind you, this is the one only true God, perfectly holy and righteous in his being, and in all his ways, Who is making this judgment that means there was no sin in the world? Nor any consequences of sin no sickness no death Everything was good Man as the crowning work of God's creative handiwork Was created we were told in the image of God in the image of God Now we are told in John 4 verse 24 that God is a spirit. And when we are told, therefore, that man was created in the image of God, we must not have in mind something physical. So we are reminded, as with all biblical concepts, scripture must interpret for us the meaning of this image of God in which man was created. And that image is defined by certain spiritual characteristics or virtues spelled out for us in Colossians 3 verse 10 and Ephesians 4 verse 24, as the catechism refers to in its footnotes. And summed up, the image of God that man was given at his creation included three astounding virtues. true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. Now think about that if you can. We are so far removed from these that it is difficult even to conceive of enjoying the perfection of that image of God. Adam knew God perfectly. He didn't have to study the Bible to gain that knowledge. He didn't have to grow in his theological thinking. He knew God perfectly to the limits of his human mind. Adam was perfectly righteous. That is, he knew perfectly the standard of right and wrong that God had established and set before him. But Adam was created to live in conformity to that standard, to the glory of God, his creator and friend. And then Adam lived in perfect holiness, completely consecrated to God, living to his glory in everything. That's how God created man. That's how God created male and female. That being the case, there was no sin. There was no sin in the relationship between Adam and Eve. Imagine two people living together in marriage, never getting on each other's nerves, never speaking in a bad tone of voice, always serving as mirrors of God's love and the fellowship of his own covenant life, it's certainly required of a Christian husband and wife that they reflect the glorious union of Christ and the church. And it's possible, too, to have a beautiful relationship in marriage When that marriage has been redeemed by Christ But we know nothing of the perfection That Adam and Eve enjoyed in that state of paradise It apparently didn't last very long We don't know how long Adam and Eve enjoyed that perfection but They knew no conflict. They knew no sorrow. They knew no conflict with creation. They suffered no trouble in their exercise of dominion over the creation. But the wickedness and perversity that we see and experience, the sorrows, the troubles, the deaths, had no place in the world God created in the beginning. What a beautiful world that had to be. And imagine, if you can, heaven will be even more glorious for those redeemed by Christ. But that world in which Adam and Eve lived, and indeed their own lives, were devastated by the fall into sin. The Heidelberg Catechism asks the question that arises from this fallen world, whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature? Now, you realize that question recognizes that man is not innately good. The Pelagian immediately denies this premise. The Pelagian insists that all human beings are innately good. They deny what the psalmist wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Psalm 51, verse 5, when he said, behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Pelagians say that the child is born with a nature that is good. but that they are affected negatively by their environment and they begin to influence the bad behaviors of their parents and others that are around them. And as we consider question and answer seven, we will see the reformed response to that erroneous way of thinking, but the fact is that poison of Pelagianism has Influence the thinking of much of the church world going all the way back to the Roman Catholic Church in the days of Augustine in the late for in the early fourth century and The world too commonly thinks that way are there good people in the world? To answer no to that question or even to cast doubt upon whether or not there are is is to open yourself up to reviling. And certainly, if we answer that question, are there good people in the world, simply by comparing human beings and what we observe of various men and women, we would say, certainly there are good people in the world. But what we have to remember is that this very question brings us before the judgment of God, the creator. God alone is the judge of good and evil, right and wrong. Because every human being has been created to stand in relationship to his or her creator. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight. But all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Hebrews 4 verse 13. We tend to live quite concerned about what our peers think of us. We like to deceive ourselves into thinking that we aren't hurting anyone if we send behind closed doors. So long as no one sees us, our reputation remains intact. Do you think that way? But there is nothing we can hide from God. Nothing. After all he is the one to whom we must give answer So we cannot escape what we read in Romans 3 which is a reference and expansion on what we saying from the Old Testament in Psalm 14 and While we read from Romans 3 verses 10 through 18 It's important in referring again to that passage now that we understand the inspired apostle was not making a comparison between righteous church people and the ungodly people of the world. He's asking what advantage have had the Jews over against the Gentiles? And what has that advantage profited them? And more, he's pointing both to the need for a savior. So he raises the question in verse nine. What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise. For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. That's God's judgment upon all. As he holds us up to his righteous standard and particularly his requirement to love him perfectly with our whole being, his judgment is As it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are all together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. And as he demonstrates how that wickedness comes to expression, it ought to strike us that the first thing that exposes us is what comes from our mouths. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. And this is God's judgment upon the whole human race. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known? There is no fear of God before their eyes. Do you think that your goodness will get you to heaven? Do you think that attending church regularly or doing certain religious works will gain God's favor? Don't deceive yourselves. And what is the source of all the misery that is your own experience, the lack of peace that is so unsettling to your soul? Don't look at everyone else Don't attempt to put the blame on anyone but yourself and I speak also to myself God bears no blame for our misery Scripture makes clear that it's the inclination of every person to point the finger of blame elsewhere and particularly to God himself. God put this person on my pathway. God put me in this situation and circumstance. Or as Adam said, the woman which thou gavest me, she. But James, in his inspired epistle, Chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 writes, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. The guilt is ours. The sin that we have committed has subjected us to the curse. We have cast aside all God's good gifts. If we are to know peace, if we are to be delivered from our misery, we need a Savior. But the catechism in leading us to scripture's teaching concerning this truth points to our union with Adam and Eve and points to the fact that from the fall and disobedience of our first parents, our nature has become so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin. The account of the fall is given in Genesis chapter three, and it's a history that I will not cover in this sermon this morning. But what we are shown is that sin is a departure from the express will of God for his rational, moral creature. Sin is rebellion against God. No matter which of the many terms that scripture uses with regard to sin, transgression, rebellion, disobedience, unrighteousness, ungodliness, and such like, all point in the same direction. Sin stands in opposition to the perfectly holy God. And as Adam and Eve were told when God placed them in the garden and gave them instruction concerning the two special trees that he had created in the garden, when he forbade Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he said, in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Or literally, dying thou shalt die. When Adam fell, when he rebelled against his friend, Sovereign, he pulled that word of God upon himself, dying thou shalt die. God's justice was immediately revealed. And we ought not overlook the fact that Scripture from beginning to end Not only exposes man's guilt, but is a justification of God in his perfect being and all that he does. None shall escape that revelation of God's perfect justice. Adam's fall brought him under the sentence of death. Sin corrupted his whole nature. Think about what that means. Whereas prior to the fall, man's reason, his will, his emotions, his desires, his speech, and all his abilities of body and mind were instruments of righteousness by which man lived in subjection to the glory of his creator. After the fall, All those good gifts were changed into weapons of unrighteousness. While he remains an image bearer, that is a rational moral creature capable of bearing the image of God, the contents of that image were completely poured out of him. Air explodes out of a popped balloon So that the balloon itself man as an image bearer Became misshapen and deformed only a shadow of what he once was So that man now bears traits that resemble Satan more than they do God John 8 verse 44 and Ephesians 2 verse 2. So let's look at our canons of Dort this morning. The third and fourth heads of doctrine. As our canons summarize scripture's teaching concerning man's corruption, in this section, the third and fourth heads of doctrine, That's page 67 in the back of the Psalter. In the first article, man was originally formed after the image of God. His understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his creator and of spiritual things. His heart and will were upright, all his affections pure, and the whole man was holy. But revolting from God by the instigation of the devil and abusing the freedom of his own will, he forfeited these excellent gifts. And on the contrary, entailed on himself blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity, and perverseness of judgment, became wicked, rebellious, Obdurate in heart and will and impure in his affection Now How did Adams fall affect me? Let's read article 2 now Man after his fall after the fall begat children in his own likeness a Corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring Hence all the posterity of Adam, Christ only accepted, have derived corruption from their original parent, not by imitation, as the Pelagians of old asserted, but by the propagation of a vicious nature. You see, it's not without reason that our catechism refers to Adam and Eve as our first parents. It speaks, therefore, of our organic relationship to Adam. There's also a legal relationship in which we stand to Adam, as Romans 5 makes clear. Adam's guilt as the legal head of the whole human race that would come from him is also our guilt, but the consequence of that guilt The death, which is the pollution of our nature, as the canons say, our vicious nature, is passed on from father to children. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring. So that is Psalm 51 verse five says, we are all conceived and born in sin. That precious baby is not innocent or sinless. That baby is born with a vicious nature, which will come to expression before he is knowledgeably aware of his environment and able to imitate the sins of his parents. Conclusion led to return to article three of the third and fourth heads of the canons Therefore all men are conceived in sin and by nature children of wrath Incapable of saving good prone to evil dead in sin and in bondage thereto Without the regenerating work of the whole grace of the Holy Spirit They are neither able nor willing to return to God to reform the depravity of their nature nor to dispose themselves to Reformation and that brings us back to question and answer eight of Lords day three Are we then so corrupt that We are wholly incapable completely incapable of doing any good and inclined to all wickedness Indeed we are Except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God Totally depraved Except we are regenerated The universality of sin is such a dominant fact of life that it forces itself upon the consciousness of every human being. Scripture confirms what we see and observe of the development of sin all around us, what we experience in our lives. It didn't take many generations before God saw it necessary to execute the judgment of the flood. We read in Genesis 6 verse 5, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. But the great flood, by which eight souls were saved, didn't eliminate sin. It didn't eliminate sin from the heart of man. For after Noah came off that ark, he knew it necessary to build an altar to the Lord and to offer sacrifices upon that altar that pointed to the necessity of Christ's sacrifice. Why was that necessary? Because God said, even of those eight souls that remained, and we read this in Genesis 8, verse 21, the imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is evil from his youth. In God's sight, there's no man living who is justified. Psalm 143 verse 2. The whole world lieth in wickedness. 1 John 5 verse 19. Has Satan as its prince. John 16 verse 11. And lives in its own self-seeking desires and lusts. Nor is sin simply in the outward action. Our very hearts are polluted. We're not only sinners, we are sinful. For from within, from the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, deceit, Thefts covetousness wickedness lasciviousness and evil eye blasphemy pride Foolishness all these evil things come from within and defile a man the man said Jesus in Mark 7 verses 21 through 23 That fundamental truth is denied by all who look for their solution to the world's problems by changing the circumstances of people. The solution to murder is not to take away guns or knives or automobiles from law-abiding citizens. The solution to mental illness and substance abuse among those who are homeless is not so simple as putting them into houses. The solution to drug abuse is not to provide drug houses where people can shoot up legally. The solution to derisive and evil speech in society and in the church is not to shut down social media. Changes in circumstances do not address the heart from whence all social problems and sins arise. Apart from a change of the heart, there is no life. There is no escape from sin and death, but the catechism even in this section unfolding the greatness of our sin and misery, would not leave us without hope. That hope, however, cannot be in anything that arises from within us. By grace alone we are saved. Consumed by spiritual blindness, bound by sin and death, We must be born again in order to see the kingdom of God. You and I don't contribute to our births, nor do we contribute in any way to our spiritual rebirth. God alone can save us. The spirit of God must work in us the change, the radical change that gives us life, the life of Christ. and therefore the life that is everlasting. We must be born again even to see the greatness of our sins and miseries. We must be born again in order to see the need for a savior. We must be born again in order to hear the gospel of our justification by Christ alone in Christ alone and by faith alone. We must be born again in order to believe. And so I proclaim to you the call of the gospel. Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom alone is our only comfort in life and death. Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee from the depths of our hearts that Thou art merciful, merciful to save sinners such as we. Heavenly Father, Having heard again today the greatness of our sins and miseries, we call upon thee in prayer because we have tasted the wonder of regeneration by thy Holy Spirit. And we pray that thou will continue to abide with us and bless us as thou dost proclaim thy word to us. Give us thy continued grace amidst all the trials and sorrows of this earthly sojourn until thou dost receive us in glory. For Jesus' sake, amen.